Rebukes its owner

2010, the Post was ordered last month to slash another 30 jobs from a newsroom whose count was already below 100.

“These job losses are painful, and we know meaningful work will not get done because talented journalists have left the organisation,” Colacioppo told the staff after a meeting during which she delivered news of the layoffs. “I’m sure some commenters will cheer what they believe is the eventual demise of the mainstream media, but there is nothing to celebrate when a city has fewer journalists working in it.”

Before she was ordered to carry out the latest reduction in staff – a process that is scheduled to be completed by July – the editor said she believed that things were looking up for the Post.

“Aside from the last three weeks or so, I would have described the last year as a turning point for us,” Colacioppo said in an interview Saturday. “Then this came.”

The announcement of the latest layoffs pitted Post employees against an ownership team that seems to have little regard for quality journalism. But as newspapers across the country continue to suffer – and as more of them come under the ownership of public companies like Gannett or investment firms looking to wring profits from a troubled business – the Post has also become a flash point in the newspaper industry’s battle for survival.

Digital First Media is among the biggest newspaper chains in the country, with more than 90 newspapers including the Pioneer Press of St Paul, Minnesota; the Mercury News of San Jose, California; the Orange County Register; and the Boston Herald. The company has aggressively cut resources in its quest for profit, with recent staff reductions at several of its papers, including the Mercury News and the Herald.